What is an Economic Bail Out and What Does It Mean?

Thanks for your info here. Take care!

Don't even get me started. I think the entire government should be replaced in Washington. Let's start new and I'm sure we won't run into any more snags. High Hopes I guess.

Great read Jo

This is very timely. I've been having conversations about it all week. Everyone is superconfused about how to feel about the bail out.

Jo,
Thanks for educating me on this issue. I am politically illiterate. I usually just agree with my wife since she follows the news more than me.
Do we make matters worse by saving our money in home safe or under a mattress? I hear talk of people ditching their banks that are not FDIC insured.
Your friend,
Chris

A fine commentary here. I agree with what you said about personal bail outs. Many people live above their means. I feel sorry for them, but at the end of the day, it's not fair for us taxpayers to pay for their mistakes, while we ourselves try the best we can to manage our finances properly.

I agree with what you wrote. This governement of ours is only thinking about the more higher people then the ones who will actually suffer from this bailout. I understand the real estate market as well as these banks need help, but at the expense of the hard workers of america, to a point it\'s not totally fair, but then again what really is.

Good article. However there are quite a few misquotes.
- "The bail out is necessary to prevent worldwide economic turmoil". Not true. This stmt. would have been true about 20 years ago. Today, when the USA catches a cold, the rest of the world barely sneeezes....
- "the wide spread results of what will happen if these businesses fail is a matter of national security". This is not a matter of national security. This is what happens when capitalism and greed runs amok...

"Personal responsibility is part of life". Agreed. Agreed. For several decades the American public has lived lives far beyond their bank balances. Bigger houses, bigger cars, lifestyles that they could not afford. I say let the chips fall where they will, it is time the average american gets a dose of reality and falls in line with the way in which the rest of the world lives...i.e. sensibly!!!

Good article, but it contains a few grammar mistakes in the use of "its" and "it's"
I agree on the criticism regarding the home owners who buy more than they can afford.

I would like to see assumable loans make a comeback.

What about those middle class people that were living in their means. Only buy things they knew they could afford, had great jobs, but now have been laid off work. They can't get another job, can't sell their house because they are now upside down in it because of the economy? They are now in danger of lossing a house they worked for their whole life? You are okay with that?? Nice I can tell what kind of people you are. 700 billion dollars is more then enough to give every tax paying American 250,000 dollars do you think that would bail out the mortage companies?

Good article. Can tell "what kind of people" Mandy is too.

i like your article thanks for this valuable information

I also agree to an extent. However, due to the economy housing prices have decreased, and like mandy said...what if you have lost your job, as i have, and NOW are living outside your means because you don't have a job? It seems this mess is more like 'a dog trying to catch his tail'. I do think there should be caps on executive salaries and their lavish 'benefits'. Recently, my division was closed down, but the man in charge of our division was reassigned to a different job, with NO accountability of the failure of our division and HE is the only one of 500 with not only a job, but a VERY VERY good one...he fails, yet he is rewarded. We fail, and we are punished. There are two sides to every story, seems like their are more 'high and mighty' republicans reading this article. I don't have the money to be a republican. And I certainly can't afford another 8 years like we have had.

i just want to know if this whole bailout thing is gonna help the people that never mind buying something they want that they cant afford, what about the people who cant afford what they need to survive, is this bailout thing gonna help them?

this aricle is so right, this is what i needed to hear!
(Heloed with my homework also)

This article opened my eyes to what a bailout is. but i would want to know why did President Bush go to China for bailout. isn't it like selling ur values. USA and China are opposites if my history and philosophy is right.
one thing though, this period will pass and there will be better days for americans. i only hope they have learnt their lessons not to bite more than they can chew and to cut their coat according to their size.
Good job

well done on the article joe. helped me out alot. i agree with everything you say. for those reading my comment that buy things they don't need with out any money, screw you. If you do not have the money at the time, save it up. I am a 18 year old high school kid who saved his money for a very nice truck and believe me, it's alot sweeter when you know u deserve it. so thanks again joe for your article. hopefully americans start using there damn head.

It looks to me as though they have killed the goose in order to get all the golden eggs. A dead goose lays no eggs. We are left with a bunch of feathers and a rotting carcass.

I agree with most of your thoughts on the economic bailout, however the part I don\'t agree with is the part about the 5% of homeowner\'s that are losing their homes should\'nt be elligible for help as they must have over extended themselve\'s. Isn\'t that exactly what the lenders did by taking on to many sub-prime loans! They created the economic instability that we as a nation will have to pay for.

I just thought I should add one more thing after reading all the comments about Joe's article. I'm just glad we won't have to hear anything from repulicans for the next four years. I hope you enjoy the tax plan.

September 20, 2008
RE: U S Economy
I really believe that we must preserve the economic miracle that has given our citizens one of the highest living standards in the world. This economic miracle has not been due to the efforts of Wall Street MBA's, Stock Market Gamblers, Real Estate Speculators, Economists, Insurance Salesmen, Junk Bond Salesmen, Lawyers, etc. It has been due to the Industrial Base that produced the food and other items that we consumed, plus the excess of goods & services that were produced and then sold to other countries in order to accumulate our gold reserves through a positive balance of trade surplus payments. The gold reserves are the basis of the value or buying power of our currency, and this is true of all other currencies in the world.
The Stock Markets are just gambling Casinos for the public to make gambling wagers (investments) in ownership of publicly traded companies, securities, loans, and other investment vehicles. Investors just lost some of value of their investments, and there is nothing wrong with this loss. They should not have believed anything that their brokers told them about those or other investments. Many people got loans for houses they could not afford, and these people should lose their houses in foreclosure. The Federal Government pressured the Mortgage Markets to give mortgages to people with bad credit histories. Financial Managers combined multiple numbers of these low quality loans into packages (of low quality loans) and sold them to investors at (almost) face value. These Financial Managers got multi-million dollar (non-refundable) bonuses for their efforts. As more and more of these sub-prime non-credit worthy mortgagees defaulted, the value of these packages of multiple mortgages diminished drastically.
The California real estate values will plummet to a fraction of their present sales prices. The $500,000.00 South LA crack house with a $495,000.00 mortgage, roof leaks, no air conditioning, and no plumbing owned by an unemployed person might now sale for $5,000.00. No more "flipping Houses". No more real estate geniuses. No more get-rich-quick real estate seminars.
Wall Street does not need a bailout. Those that invested in these sub-prime securities should lose most or all of their money. This will be an incentive for these and other future investors to become more cautious of what they buy mortgages. This will cause the investors to become more skeptical concerning anything that the financial experts have to say. We need for this penalty to happen. This will cause investors to be wary of anything that any stock broker has to say.
As this country increases the import of all of the things that we consume and at the same time we destroy our industrial base that was previously used to manufacture those items that we consume, we will have to pay the working people in those foreign countries with our dollars for these items that we import. Our dollars are no longer backed by and redeemable in gold, but are now backed up by the full faith and credit of the United States of America (Junk Bonds).
As the government cranks up the presses to print more and more dollars, T-Bills, bonds, and similar securities to pay for all of the government payrolls, imports, entitlements, benefits, wars, welfare schemes, Wall Street Bailouts, and other things that cost money; the value and buying power of the U. S. dollar diminishes rapidly. As the industrial manufacturing countries, Oil Producing countries, other foreign governments, and various foreign citizens amass large values dollars, bonds, T-Bills and other government issued securities realize that the value (buying Power) of these items is diminishing quite rapidly, they will look for other places to place their U S dollars. These foreigners realize that the buying power of each dollar they hold is diminishing daily, so they are now coming to this country and purchase our real estate, refineries, petro-chemical industries, hotels, agri-business, breweries, remaining product manufacturing facilities, casinos, and other similar investments with those securities that they cannot redeem for gold. Our Government encourages these foreign purchases as "Investing in America". Several years ago these foreigners realized that these investments do not lose value as quickly as the dollars and other government securities lose value, but actually gain in value. We are selling the future of this country in order to borrow money to continue our high spending, high consuming, and non-producing life style with borrowed money, and our children and grandchildren will have to work really hard to pay for our lifestyles, if the USA is not a third world economy with no jobs.
Our political and economic leaders have decided that we can continue our economic miracle by becoming a service oriented society cooking hamburgers for each other using imported beef, imported vegetables, etc.; suing each other, and selling insurance & junk bonds to each other, but definitely not manufacturing or creating anything that we consume. Instead of importing the products that we consume; and then paying for our imported items by borrowing more money and/or issuing U.S Bonds (junk bonds) to redeem the dollars paid to foreign governments for our imports, we need to re-industrialize and manufacture the things that we consume. This stupidity will eventually change this country into a third world country when foreign countries discover that we will not repay (redeem the bonds) the money that they are lending us. Foreign Governments and their rulers are not stupid. They will continue buy the real estate, industries, and financial institutions located in the USA with the low value bonds that we gave to them (to pay for the things that we wanted by way of imports rather than us working to manufacture these items) in lieu of gold for their dollars. The US will then be third world employees or slaves to the foreign countries that will own everything in the USA. Future nationalization (ala Mexico) of foreign owned assets is another discussion topic.
There is nothing more saddening or devastating than mass unemployment such as exists in countries such as Mexico or India. Crime, family abandonment, divorce, and other bad things increase during these periods. Our basic industries such as steel, computer chip manufacturing, petrochemical refining, appliance manufacturing, tire manufacturing, automobile parts manufacturing, aircraft manufacturing, textiles, and etc. have been decimated and/or totally eliminated from this country by OSHA and the EPA. The North American Free Trade Agreement has almost eliminated the remainder of the basic industrial manufacturing jobs from the USA. The OSHA and the EPA are the major causes of the de-industrialization of the USA. The USA must re-industrialize. Even if OSHA and the EPA were eliminated today, it would take years to re-create the manufacturing and industrial production bases that they destroyed. New jobs created by the EPA are nice, but they are about as economically useful to our balance of payments and our industrial base as raking leaves, digging holes and re-filling the same holes, since they do not produce anything economically useful that we can consume. Disband OSHA and the EPA in total and fire all of those government employees. Be decisive, not timid or partial.
Our Productive Industrial Base could not exist with foreign invasion, rampant crime, protection rackets, corruption, foreign invasion, sabotage, etc., so a portion of the money earned by this industrial base has usually been taken by taxation to pay the federal government and local governments to prevent these occurrences. Civilizations have always taxed the population base to pay for National Security, Crime Prevention, and other items that assist and protected their industrial production base.
Our U S Government is now spending these taxes and our gold reserves on entitlement schemes in order to buy votes from non-productive citizens that do not contribute to, help, or support our industrial base. There is a limit to how many non-productive people that the productive people within our industrial economic productive base can support by producing enough wealth (gold) to support these non-productive people. When our gold reserves became diminished, we then continued to expand these entitlements by borrowing money from foreign banks and foreign governments by pledging the "Full Faith & Credit of the United States of America" (aka Junk Bonds) in lieu of government security re-payment in gold. We also decided that we could allow OSHA and the EPA to close down the industrial bases that originally created these vast gold reserves that were the basis of the value of our currency. The federal gold reserve that was created by our positive balance of trade has allowed the USA to expend this gold to provide social experiments, foreign aid, wars, and other functions that would not be possible without the gold reserves created by our industrial bases. The Federal monetary system, the foreign trade deficit (or surplus), and the national debt are interrelated in this way and control our standard of living. We must educate our students and the public to this fact. If we continue to import more and more of the things that we consume, and continue to pay for these items by borrowing money (aka Selling U S Government issued Bonds) since our gold reserves are essentially gone, we could very soon end up being a third world country like Mexico, Somalia or Ethiopia with no jobs for our population. We cannot continue to ignore our balance of trade deficit. We need to be willing to do anything that will replenish our gold reserves. This can be done by exporting more dollar value of goods and services than we import, and then getting the gold from the other countries that buy our goods & services. We must improve our balance of trade situation so that we are importing gold (including cash, bonds & other securities) instead of exporting gold from our gold reserves to redeem our dollars held by the manufacturing countries. We must again begin to manufacture and/or create the things that we consume, and/or produce goods that we can export to pay for the things that we import. We can enjoy free trade if we produce enough value of products that we sell to the foreign nations that will pay us enough for those products that we export to them.
We are borrowing money (aka Selling Junk Bonds and T-Bills) from foreign countries to operate our Federal Government. These countries will soon realize that we have destroyed our industrial base and are borrowing money to purchase the things that we are consuming instead of manufacturing these items. The citizens of the exporting countries realize that their U. S. issued bonds are becoming of less and less value every day, but that they can purchase USA real estate, financial organizations, office buildings, apartments, refineries, and our remaining industries in the U.S. using their U. S. issued bonds as payment, and this prevents the devaluation of the purchasing power of their U.S. issued bonds that they obtained in exchange for the items that they exported to the U.S. for our consumption and maintaining our quality of life.
If we do not balance the federal budget and if we continue to borrow money from foreign banks and nations (aka Selling Junk Bonds and T-Bills) to pay for our social entitlements and social experiments, wars, and our balance of trade, what are we going to do when foreign banks and other nations refuse to lend us more money? Will we just crank up the printing presses like Mexico? It is not fair for us to live high on the hog with borrowed money that our children and grandchildren will have to pay back to foreign banks and foreign governments. The November 2008 federal debt of 10.57 Trillion dollars divided by 250 million citizens equals about $34,652 per person, or many times that for each productive worker that contributes to our balance of trade. We must reduce our federal government expenditures.
Our Student loan program that gives student loans to students that want to become MBA's, lawyers, artists, poets, historians, political scientists, plus all sorts of other degrees that generally do not contribute anything to our balance of trade should be eliminated. Student loans should be available for only those fields such as science, engineering, and medicine that do contribute to our industrial base and help our international trade balance. Student loans should not be available for prospective MBAs, historians, English majors, accountants, lawyers, artists, poets, theologians, actors, or any other activities that do not contribute to our industrial base and balance of trade situation. Let the people that enjoy art, poetry, gambling, playing stocks, and etc. pay to support those activities. I believe that there is very little economic future in engineering. I believe that most students today want to study business and/or economics to become Enron type Master Criminals, or like some of the other extremely wealthy master criminals of today. If you review almost any of the SEC filings you will find almost all of the sworn information is extremely false, especially when you get away from the "Blue Chip" stocks. No person in their right mind would major in science or engineering since the pay scale has eroded so much (due to the import of foreign engineers who will work for just slightly above minimum wages and a Green Card). The Foreign Engineers might only be 20% as productive as US educated engineers, but they are willing to work for only 10% or 15% of the pay that US educated engineers are paid, or used to be paid, then it is twice as economically effective to employ foreign educated engineers when compared to U.S. educated engineers, except for the liability of the additional design failures.
a. What are the REQUIRED functions of a U S Federal Government?
Military - To protect us from foreign invasion and allow our industrial activities to provide products to export to create a positive effect on our balance of trade.
Coast Guard - To collect import tariffs, Patrol Coastlines, intercept and deport illegal aliens.
Courts & FBI - To investigate crimes and to enforce domestic laws that keep an organized economy operating with minimal disturbances due to criminal activities.
Treasury - To coin money, regulate Banking, etc.
Postal Service - To process mail - This is a terrible situation - Not as efficient as FEX, UPS, and other non-government mail services. Make it non-union and non-civil service so that postal employees will have to work to keep their jobs.
Immigration & Naturalization Service - Keep illegal immigrants out of this country and deport illegal immigrants. Reduce this agency in size by making it illegal for citizens to hire non-citizens.
DOE - We need nuclear bombs, nuclear energy, and nuclear R&D. The next time we want to make war, use Nuclear Bombs and not troops.
The tidal wave of immigration and high birth-rate of immigrants will eventually allow the immigrants to rule this country. When the Latin Americans (or Africans) take over this country, do you believe that it will be different from any other country run by Latin Americans (or Africans)? Civil and Human Rights go out the window when this happens (Washington DC, Detroit, Atlanta, Chicago, etc.). Stop all immigration into this country, except those with technical educations that will contribute to the re-industrialization of the USA economy.
We need vigorous enforcement and prosecution of the people who benefited from the S&L looting. This includes getting the Keating 5 Representatives into prison. This includes asking how Bill & Hillary paid for their shares of the Whitewater land speculation. Even if you cannot get these people into prison, apply pressure to totally disgrace these people. We need to be more concerned about these white collar crimes.
b. There are some Federal Government functions that benefit the entire nation and can more easily be accomplished on a national level:
Agriculture - But eliminate the capability of this agency to distribute cash tax funds to farmers and agro-businesses. Distribute only advice and opinions to farmers. Conduct scientific agricultural research for the benefit of farmers.
FDA - To certify the quality and safety of food & drugs - This is indeed a national problem.
Health - To advise and protect us from national medical problems and concerns. To test and certify the safety of medical products and drugs. Expenditures should be limited to R&D only for the benefit of the total population. The medical expenditures in 1950 was less than 1/2 of 1% of the GNP. Today it is 16% of the GNP and rising rapidly. Maybe we should have National free health, since only the middle class pays for their health care. Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, recipients plus Illegal Immigrants get their healthcare paid for by the taxpayers anyway.
Interstate Highway - make it self supporting with fuel taxes. Trucks damage the pavement with their heavier axle weights very much more than automobiles, and should pay the most taxes. Taxes should be based exponentially upon axle weight limits so that those who damage the paving the most will pay their proportional share. Talk to the Texas Highway Department engineers in addition to the DOT.
Federal Aviation System - This system benefits the air transportation system, including private pilots (like myself). The entire cost of this system should be paid for by the air transportation system, the air passengers, and not the taxpayers. Aviation fuel taxes might be the proper way to finance the total cost of the FAA.
Inter Coastal Canal System - The nation's waterways benefits the barge transportation system. The entire cost of this system should be paid for by the barge transportation system that benefits from this system, and not the taxpayers. Maritime diesel fuel taxes used by the barge system might be the proper way to finance the Inter Coastal Canal System.
NASA - This is a national ego thing - we could do without this, some R&D benefits are realized. It is not a large expenditure compared to welfare and other entitlements, but this is not a necessary expenditure. This Expenditure does give the USA some prestige & propaganda to the world that is of some small benefit.
National Parks Service - Maintain our Parks for the use of all, but increase park use fees in order to make the park users (campers) pay for all of the National Parks Service operation & maintenance cost.
Education - The local education systems have served this country well. Eliminate all of the federal education expenditures. The problems are with the local teachers that do not know the subjects that they teach. Eliminate education courses and education degrees from colleges, make the teachers learn the subjects that they want to teach. The students need to learn science to benefit the nation. Pay science teachers (that have science degrees) more than other teachers. In Texas, the state is trying to make the students study creationism. We need a constitutional amendment to prohibit the teaching or the consideration of any religious, superstition, supernatural, or other false based and/or falsely influenced theory as a legitimate science.
Banking Regulation - Have a National record of Loans made by financial institutions so that loan documentation will not be lost or destroyed by unscrupulous parties (like the Whitewater Scandal where the Clinton's loan documentation could not be found after the S&L loan files were stored at Hillary's Law firm). The banks need to be aggressively monitored and audited. Banking white collar criminals should be punished severely. These people are modern-day Willie Suttons. You should create a National registry of Loans made by financial institutions to individuals and other institutions so that loan documentation will not be lost or destroyed by unscrupulous parties such as the whitewater loans. Ken Lay was probably the most successful master criminal of all times, even though he was convicted.
Social Security - Why not limit individual benefits to the amount deposited by that individual?
DOT - Why should everyone pay for metropolitan subway systems that benefit only a few people in a particular city or region.
c. There are some Federal Government functions that should be completely eliminated:
EPA - If not disbanded, re-organize with orders not to hamper any re-industrialization of the USA - If the EPA had been created in 1865, the USA would be a third world country today, and/or part of Germany or Japan.
WELFARE - Billions of Tax Dollars for multi-generation welfare recipients should be eliminated. Taking funds from workers to pay lazy people not to work should be a crime. Paying People to watch TV and have multiple babies is not right. Referring to these un-married whores and prostitutes as single parents is an insult to the hard working single parents that do support themselves and their offspring. I am also ready to eliminate the AFDC program. What percentage of the AFDC funds are spent on crack cocaine and other drugs rather than children? What percentage of our prison population benefited from AFDC as children? We should build dormitories with large open bay sleeping quarters for the children under 18 that cannot be supported by their parents. Any parent could check their children into these facilities, and only visit their children on weekends. Minimum lengths of stay according to the school semester system could be mandated along with other rules & regulations. We need to take care of our children, but not give AFDC money to the children's parents to purchase illegal drugs. AFDC money is the only reason that many drug addicted parents and/or prostitutes want custody of their children.
Unemployment Payments - These payments just postpone relocation of people to where jobs still exist. What are we going to do after the EPA and OSHA have destroyed most or all of our industrial and manufacturing jobs entirely? There will not be any jobs anywhere in the U.S. anyway.
SSI - Free money paid to drunks & drug addicts? Why?
World Bank Support - This is another giveaway of U. S. Taxpayer Money to the leaders of third world governments that their leaders siphon off funds to their personal Swiss Bank Accounts. The USA should not continue to loan money to the World Bank. This will not change in the near future, or probably will never change. Generally, they will never pay the U.S. back in total.
FARM MONEY - Billions of Tax Dollars for farm price supports makes some farmers millionaires. This is welfare for farmers. Eliminate the price control part of this department and limit the expenditures to Agricultural R&D. Fire all of the other employees. Disband the Farmers Home Loan Program, and eliminate all cash payments to farmers.
Social Security - Is it fair for people to pay a total of $20,000 into the system, and then draw out $200,000 retirement plus another $100,000 in Medicare benefits during retirement? Change the social Security benefits to be equal to or proportional to the amount paid into the system by each individual. Illegal Immigrants will no longer enter this country, pay $15,000 into the system during 7 quarters of employment, and then withdraw as much retirement as a person who paid into the system for 50 years. I have heard that many of these Illegal Aliens have several Different Social Security Accounts under different names, and draw several retirement checks under these under different names. Maybe we cannot afford Social Security as it is currently structured. Make maximum individual personal benefits equal the total individual contributions. Raise the retirement age, let the benefits float to control costs to match the funds that might be available. Eliminate Medicare. Medicare is Welfare for the Medical Profession. As an alternate, create a socialized medical system, since only the middle class working people pay for their own family medical care.
HOUSING - Stop spending billions of tax dollars for Housing Projects, Mass Transit, Dams, and other projects that only benefit certain people. Stop promising Park Barrel projects to each and every city in order to get votes. The people that benefit should pay for the cost of the things that only benefit those few people. Why is housing a national problem and not a local problem? Why do federally funded housing projects turn into drug and crime areas? Disband the Department of Housing and fire all of the employees. This has been a scandal of taxpayer funding promoters in return for campaign contributions from the beginning.
EPA - The Environmentalists & Sierra Club want to close all industries that emit any pollution. They want polluting industrial plants must close down and relocate the jobs to foreign countries. The Companies will then fire the USA workers and hire foreign workers in the relocated plants. These industrial plants and jobs have been generally lost forever. The Environmentalists have created conditions so that the continental USA is not even considered as a site for any type of new plant or industry that would create any jobs for USA citizens. Jobs that do not produce the food, shelter and clothing that we consume are useless make-work jobs like raking leaves and/or performing environmental clean-up. If the EPA had been created in 1865, the USA would be a third world country today.
TAXES - Why not have a National Retail Sales Tax instead of an income tax. Those purchasing the most probably make the most income and/or do not work and then have the large income from some trust account. We could then fire most of the IRS personnel. You could exempt grocery store food (and maybe residential rents) to help low income people.
NEA - Disband the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and fire all of the employees. Taxpayers should not have to pay for these useless activities. The taxpayers should not have to support and pay for monuments to Lawrence Welk, pornographic photographs, bridges to nowhere, etc. Let those that enjoy pornography & any other types of art funded by this agency pay for it. The public does not need to pay for any art. It is a small expenditure, but it represents disrespect for and is an insult to the Hardworking Citizen Taxpayer when public tax funds are expended for pornographic art, like photographs of crucifixes in bottles of the artist's urine. I wonder how much the government employees paid for that photograph. The average citizen probably does not approve or even care for anything that the "Art Experts" have done with public fund expenditures. How did this silly agency ever get started?
The textile and clothing manufacturing jobs were relatively low paying, low skill, labor intensive jobs. This industry could be easily re-created if we wanted it by prohibiting clothing imports. If un-employment of the un- Labor costs are the prime factor in the loss of these industries. If unemployment of our educated and un-skilled citizens persists, trade barriers might need to be re-erected to re-create this type industry. We also need high technology jobs that require education. This is one of the few industries that the EPA did not destroy. Foreign labor availability and lower labor costs will probably destroy the jobs in the high technology industries in the USA.
The Civil Rights Attorneys Fee Awards Act has made millionaires of many lawyers, released many murderers and other criminals that subsequently committed additional murders and other violent crimes from prison. This has made crime an attractive career for younger people to emulate. This act has removed the deterrence factor from our criminal law system. Repeal this act. This act has transformed our penal system from a place of punishment to a place of Relaxation, Body Building, Weight Lifting, and watching Cable TV for the convicted prisoners.
NEH - Let those who want to study the humanities do it at their own expense. The citizens cannot afford any of this expense. There is no benefit to the nation.
Mental Health - Let those who want to have mental health treatment do it at their own expense. Why enrich the psychiatrists and psychologists at taxpayer expense? Most of the recent mass murderers have been under the care of psychiatrists and psychologists anyway.
HUD - Building of new high rise slums where crime enforcement is not possible (unless the tenants become armed) has been a huge waste of funds.
Foreign Aid - Why should we pay money to governments that pay U.S. government employees to sell them our U.S. national asset type secrets? This is a giveaway of U. S. Taxpayer Money to corrupt foreign governments that siphon off funds to the leaders Swiss Bank Accounts.

I believe that we must do something to help the populations of the third world. The most important thing for the third world to do is to reduce their populations to the levels that they can support without outside help. At the turn of the 20th century there were starving masses but not in the numbers of today. This is primarily because the developed world introduced some modern medicine and free food to prevent starvation and disease. They began to lived longer and continued to multiply at the same rate instead of dying. This resulted in many more people living in misery. Their populations need to be reduced to about 10% of their current populations, or to the numbers that existed at the end of the 19th century, or to whatever they can support without outside help. Any suggestions of this kind will surely be called genocide but the alternate to this is future world wide war, terrorism, and chaos. The U.S. could start by setting a policy that after a certain date, by say 2009, only those nations that have 90% of their populations permanently sterilized will be allowed to receive free food, food on credit, foreign aid, international loans from this country, or loans from the IMF.
Government employees previously were lowly paid in return for a secure future. If you count the retirements and security, government employees are now paid about double the salaries paid in the private sector for the same or similar job.
Sincerely Yours,
Gerald Spencer
3759 Drake
Houston, Texas 77005
office (713) 621-2482;

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